


Fragments of Eternity

by Echo_Mirage



Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: Elehal spends too much time thinking, Fire Godlike, Fluff, Gen, I spend too much time thinking about the mechanics of Chanters, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:00:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26116081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Echo_Mirage/pseuds/Echo_Mirage
Summary: Prompt fills!1. A different perspective on chanting.2. Wizard TEDtalks are intimidating.3. If you think long enough, you do not go home.
Relationships: Aloth Corfiser/The Watcher
Comments: 4
Kudos: 7





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> "With a memory all fragmented but inclined to miracles"

They were not what they had been. 

They were barely anything at all, mere echoes of some other, larger thing that had been, once, and was no longer. There was the slow, heavy warmth of the bed in the moments between waking and rising and there was the biting heat of hard-packed clay on bare feet and they were nothing at all because there was nothing for them to be. No mind gave meaning to the slivers of memory that drifted through the In-Between like motes of dust caught up in the aimless stirring of long-stale air. So they whispered themselves to each other – the turnings of streets through a city now lost to time, the motion of the weaver’s hands at the loom – that they might, in their telling, retain a little longer what fleeting sense of shape they still had. A memory must be remembered, there must be something to do the remembering, as a dance must have its dancer. 

Sometimes, though, they are something more. Sometimes the whispers are from another place, and they are more than whispers. The memory of memories stir as they hear themselves spoken, and they speak back. No space here between the voice and the echo, the knowing and the being known. They are not what they had been but they are _something_ now; there is meaning again, and shape and space to be shaped into. 

They are not what they were but they are something new.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I'm right here, okay?"

“Can’t you talk to them instead?”

Aloth slid the book he had been skimming back onto the shelf with a sigh. “And what, exactly, do you think makes me more qualified to advise the Circle on the rebuilding of the Wheel than the Watcher who was there when it broke?”

“They’re wizards? And you’re…. also a wizard?” Elehal offered, halfheartedly. They had been allowed – graciously – to wait in Arkemyr’s own study while the other Archmagi arrived, in person or otherwise. Elehal had spent the entirety of that time pacing anxiously along the length of the room, pausing occasionally to dramatically drape himself over Aloth’s shoulders with a despairing groan.

“ _Please_ don’t lump me in with the Circle mages, dear.” Aloth rolled his eyes, a half-smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “I have _some_ sense at least. And I don’t see what you’re so worried about, it’s _Tayn_ for goodness sake. Tayn and Llengrath and a bunch of old fools who haven’t left their studies for fifty years.”

Elehal snorted with laughter before resuming his pacing. “Llengrath probably knows more about souls and reincarnation than I do at this point. I doubt she needs me to tell her anything. And… I think Arkemyr’s still angry with me about the Epic.” He reached up to tug at one of his horns. “And I don’t know anything about anyone else who’s going to be there. What if--?”

“What if _what_?” Aloth struggled to hide his amusement at the fact that _this_ , of all things, appeared to be the edge of Elehal’s otherwise boundless comfort zone.

“What if –” Elehal crossed his arms, pouting. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you.”

Busted.

“A little.” He walked over to stand beside Elehal, stretching up to place a smiling kiss on his cheek. “It’s difficult to believe you’re the same man I saw talk back to Rymergand in his own realm. _Twice.”_

“That’s different. Rymergand is the most straightforward creature in all of Eora. I could bargain with him in my sleep. It’s _impossible_ to tell what anyone in the Circle is thinking. Ever.”

“Well, Tayn’s probably not thinking at all, actually.”

Laughter broke through the creases lining Elehal’s face, easing some of the tension from his shoulders. He wrapped Aloth in his arms and leaned down to press their foreheads together, grinning. “I love you, did you know that?”

“I had my suspicions.” Aloth reached up to hold Elehal’s face in his hands, running his thumbs along the base of the horns sprouting from his temples.

Elehal closed his eyes and leaned into the touch, sighing. “I’m being a fool about this, I know. I’m sorry.”

“You’re forgiven. Gods know you deserve to have _one_ thing to be irrational about, after everything.” He lowered his hands to grip Elehal’s shoulders, smiling at his grunt of protest. “Listen,” he said, “I’m going to be right there, okay? Just… pretend it’s just me you’re talking to. Don’t worry about anyone else, just explain things to me, alright?”

“I… Yea, I can do that.” Elehal held Aloth’s gaze for a brief moment before tilting his chin up and kissing him, slow and tender. “Thank you.”

He could lose himself in this closeness, Aloth thought, mourning how little time they had before the rest of the Circle arrived and they would have to leave to join them. “Of course,” he murmured against Elehal’s lips, “Anything.”

“….Promise you’ll stop anyone who tries to turn me into a pig?”

“….. I promise.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "This isn't who I am."

He’d meant what he’d said to Maia, all those many months ago: He was not interested in the power struggles of the trading companies. He had come – been brought, more accurately – back to the Deadfire to chase down a god, not decide the future of nations.

As he’d come to the Dyrwood in search of a handful of stories, no more than that. Sometimes it didn’t matter very much why you had come to a place, once you got there. Sometimes the place decided for you.

Belafa was half-risen on the horizon, tracing its silver path across the waves. From the deck of _The Godhammer_ , docked at Queen’s Berth, Elehal could just make out the shape of the Vallian Trading Company Headquarters, where Director Castol would be asleep, or working late. Unaware that he was about to be ruined, completely and utterly, by what was going to happen tonight, and the lie Elehal was going to tell about it.

Tonight. He thought of the explosive Queen Onekaza had given him, carefully wrapped and sitting quietly beside his arms and armor in his cabin belowdecks. He thought he could feel it, almost, the weight of it, of what it signified.

A future for the Huana. A reminder to the trading companies that the Deadfire was not theirs for the taking.

These were things he should want. These were things he _did_ want. This was a task given to him by his queen; it shouldn’t matter what he wanted. This was his home.

It wasn’t, though. Not anymore.

He’d left.  A nd he had not come back. Not until now.

He’d thought the familiarity of the islands would be comforting. That being among people like the ones he had grown up with, hearing and speaking his native tongue in  villages that could have been his own, they were so alike, would have felt … right, somehow. Somehow made the weight of his duty easier to bear. 

But the distance was too far. The memories too foreign now, too much of a world he could no longer fully share. Someone else’s memory. Someone else’s childhood.  If you think long enough, you do not go home. 

And yet.

With a sigh, Elehal lowered his head to rest on his forearms crossed over the ship’s railing. He didn’t, really, have time to be thinking like this. The decision had been made. He needed to go to Ukaizo. He needed Onekaza’s navy and watershapers to get there. He would not have them unless the powderhouse burned. This was beyond nations or loyalties or any personal sense of morality.

Necessary sacrifices. The greater good. Like a god justifying lives cut short in the rubble of an ancient keep, far to the west. You reap but on a smaller scale. The arguments folding in on each other.

Belafa continued it’s steady path through the heavens, clear of the horizon now,  set among the stars like white sails against a dark sea.  The last muffled footsteps of the crew making their way to their berths faded into silence. Time d id not stand still, for anything.  Alone now, amid the memories and the ghosts, the  irreconcilable guilt and the arguments circling back on themselves,  Elehal made them come to a stop, and he accepted the burden of doing so. 


End file.
